Welcome to the Get Fit Guys quick and dirty tips to slim down and shape up.

My name is Ben Greenfield and I'm the Get Fit Guy.

You've probably heard a story something like this.

A small child is trapped under a burning car,

and in a feat of superhuman strength, the child's mother

rushes to the car and lifts the entire vehicle with all their might, freeing that child from

sure death. Or you may have also heard that chimps or gorillas can be ten times stronger than humans,

able to bend steel bars, punch through walls, or throw huge boulders.

Well, in both these cases, the mother and the monkey are relying upon a complete rewiring

of a special mechanism that your body has built in to keep your muscles from tearing due to

excessive force. This mechanism is called an inhibition reflex. And in

today's episode, you're going to learn exactly how to use that reflex to build superhuman strength

and trick your body into getting as strong and powerful as possible. Let's first talk about this

inhibition reflex. Built into every muscle in your body

is a special organ called a Golgai tendon organ or GTO. When your muscle contracts and generates a force,

the GTO fires off nerve impulses to your spinal cord. And then your spinal cord responds with a reflex called an

inhibition reflex. This nervous system inhibition signals your muscle fibers to limit force production

when the muscle has increased tension. While this mechanism can be a very convenient way to keep you

from, say, tearing your

biceps while lifting a heavy object, it can, at the same time, inhibit your performance when

you're trying to lift a heavy weight, push the bike pedals hard, run up a hill, maximize your

pulling force while swimming, or even lift a piece of furniture. Now, in the case of the mother saving her child from a burning car or a gorilla escaping from the zoo by bending steel bars,

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